Team Obama insists it was led astray by the CIA and that the White House was deaf and blind about the coordinated terrorist strike in Libya on Sept. 11, believing intelligence assessments that the attack was merely a protest that got out of hand.

But the claim is looking shakier than ever: Turns out the administration had eyes and ears in Benghazi the entire time.

Their eyes? During the attack, an unarmed Predator drone was flying over the city, watching the events in real time.

Their ears? According to reporter Eli Lake, “The State Department, monitoring the phone calls from the consulate’s operations center, knew virtually from the first minutes . . . that the attack on the consulate was no protest gone astray.”

Though administration officials would spend days blaming the strike on an obscure filmmaker, basic facts were already clear to the White House at that early hour.

“When a major CIA outpost nearby came under attack . . . there was little doubt about that being an operation by well-trained terrorists,” Lake reported.

Which suggests two possibilities:

One, that Team Obama has been lying like a rug.

Two, that the US intelligence establishment is utterly broken.

Trouble is, both possibilities may be true.

The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that the CIA’s daily briefing for Obama as late as Sept. 21 said that the attack grew out of a spontaneous protest over a video that mocked the prophet Mohammed.

But the claim was based in large part on a conversation intercepted between al Qaeda members and allied terrorists in Libya.

Here’s a simple rule: When intel comes straight from a terrorist, safe to say he’s not discussing a random act of violence.

So why did the CIA insist that the attack began as a protest in the face of so much contrary information — and why did the White House believe it for a moment?

If Team Obama’s eyes and ears were in working order on Sept. 11, they didn’t have the sense or the honesty to admit what they saw and heard and knew so clearly:

That there was never a protest at all.

That the administration had refused requests for more security in Benghazi in the months before the attack, as al Qaeda and other terrorist groups grew in strength.

That the killers then tore into the consulate with ease, and slipped away as easily.

That Chris Stevens didn’t have to die.

Blaming their mistakes and their dishonesty on the CIA simply drops the White House to a new and shameful low.